New and improved raised garden beds

The year we arrived in Tasmania, I was keen to start growing food. Unfortunately, most of our topsoil up here on the hill is clay. It's very hard to dig when its wet and even harder when it is dry. And most things don't like growing in it because of poor drainage. So we procured some beautiful old apple crates at $5 each from an orchard down the road, filled them with compost and soil and for almost five years they have worked really well and looked so nice to boot. But now the wood is rotting, and despite some handy fixes from David, the weathered boxes are starting to fall apart. This winter, we planned to replace them.

Then, a couple of weeks back at the Taste of the Huon festival, we spotted Dovetail Timbers with their ingenious lock-together system for building with wood. It turned out we could order the timber in a length that would go around the existing apple crates - perfect! No need to remove them from the possum-free chicken wire enclosure they live in. While we were at it, we ordered a couple of extra beds for stuff that doesn't need possum protection. They are made from Tasmanian hardwood and lined, so we're expecting many years of food production in them. We started installing them today and hope to finish the rest tomorrow. I think they look every bit as beautiful as the old apple crates - see what you think in the pictures below.